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Obama Quickly Crushing the Hopes of Small Business

The man who would usher in an era of 'hope and change' with his election in 2008, begins 2012 having practically eliminated any hope for small business owners.

The recent release of the Small Business Optimism Index bears this out, with uncertainty reaching new record highs, even following a first term already marked predominantly by economic and regulatory uncertainties.

From four years past and four years of a future filled with looming taxes, stifling regulations, and the uber-burdensome bill known as Obamacare, the President's main platform seems to be one of crushing small businesses, and by extension, crushing the American dream.

To start, results from the latest Optimism Index indicate record levels of uncertainty that exceed even the darkest days of the Carter presidency.

"Uncertainty about the direction of business conditions in six months reached 23% of respondents, easily surpassing a pre-recession record of 15% that was reported during the Jimmy Carter administration."

Despite the administration's constant drum-beating of the word 'recovery', the optimism index remains at rates more synonymous with another 'R' word - recession.

Several factors have created the pessimistic mindset running rampant amongst business owners; the looming fiscal cliff, the constant threat of higher costs, higher taxes, and of course, a downward trend in sales numbers.

“Weak sales remained the primary business concern for 22% of surveyed owners. The net percent, seasonally adjusted, of all small business owners reporting higher nominal sales over the past three months is negative 15%, two points worse than September."

These factors have a major effect on business hiring which, despite what you will hear from the White House, remains markedly lower than before Barack Obama became President. National employment currently stands at four million fewer workers in this country than were seen during the first quarter of 2008.

Further stagnating the business economy is an unwillingness of small business owners to invest in capital because of these many concerns. One example of this comes from Bill Keith, president of Indiana-based SunRise Solar, who found more hope in investing in loans to other projects than putting further capital into his own business.

“I see the loans as a better investment than myself, which is sad,’ Keith said, adding that his level of optimism dropped after the election. ‘I planned on investing capital if Mitt Romney was going to win, but I stopped short of doing that because that’s no way to run a business."

Amidst the myriad of concerns, the administration seems to take the opinions of small business owners with little or no regard. In fact, if the President is indeed concerned how small business perceives his policies, he has a strange way of showing it.

For instance, Obama's fiscal cliff plan for raising taxes on the ‘wealthy’ would directly impact small business owners, with higher taxes being paid by nearly 900,000 businesses making just over $250,000 annually. Despite that fact, administration talks regarding the fiscal cliff have involved labor leaders, congressional leaders, CEO's of major corporations ... but nobody representing small business.

Further eroding the confidence of these business leaders is the economic horror show known as Obamacare. With implementation of the President's health care overhaul inching ever closer, small business owners are facing record health care costs, and having to cut employee hours in an attempt to avoid even further penalties.

The day after the election, FreedomWorks noted several businesses that were committing to layoffs almost immediately, citing Obamacare taxes as the main reason.

But we also delved into several businesses that were slashing their employee's hours in an effort to remain compliant with the plan's requirements for full-time status. According to the New American, Obamacare “requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees — with ‘full time’ defined as working at least 30 hours per week — to offer ‘affordable’ health insurance to those employees."

The result? Businesses are trying to drop below the 50 full-time employee level by either eliminating jobs, or eliminating hours. In other words, the whole of Obamacare is a tax-happy prescription for small business disaster.

While larger businesses may be able to absorb all of the negative economic impacts coming from this administration, many smaller ones will end up shutting their doors. The President's policies have wasted little time in strangling small business, and eliminating any glimmer of hope they may have once had prior to the election.

Everyone’s head explodes when Obama and “the new world order” are mentioned in the same sentence, but as the evidence continues to mount up in support of the intertwining of the two, maybe it’s time to wrap one’s head in duct tape beforehand, and allow for the possibility to settle in that we’re witnessing exactly that. With the debt climbing so fast the numbers are a blur, Obama is not only silent on ACTUALspending cuts, but is making every effort to not allow for them. With Obama’s relentless bludgeoning of the small business community he’s got to know that hiring will slow further, and the economy will struggle. He’s doubled his effort to increase the entitlement rolls and ridicules, vilifies, and mocks any efforts on the part of the Republican’s to slow them. Additionally, his flagrant open invitation to illegal’s to flood in and belly up to the Obama tax payer funded feeding trough continues to weaken the country’s moral and character structure, the morale of the taxpayer and small business owner, creates animosity among us, and further reduces the nations ability to slow the rise of our withering debt. With the mainstream media fully compliant to Obama’s every whim and concealing his every covert endeavor, he, along with Geithner, Bernanke, and et. al, will continue to arrange for the devaluation and ultimate demise of the dollar through the quantitative easing debacle, purchasing of our own debt, and the unmonitored, unauthorized and undocumented printing and distribution of trillions of dollars leading to the world rejecting it as the reserve currency as the prices of commodities grow exponentially in the near future. While his sycophantic lick spittle’s continue to give lip service to his “grandiose and relentlessly dogged leadership through these troubled economic times“, Obama’s true actions will divulge something far more sinister. Actions which will never be seen by the American public, even IF the bottom drops out and we find ourselves obliged to both the “new world order dollar” and the new UN world charter. Those who don’t want to see what Obama’s doing, never will. Worshipping ANY politician is ALWAYS wrong, and if the question, “could I be wrong about my judgment, analysis, and opinion of ANY politician?“, can’t be asked with an open mind, and with the willingness to accept the possibility that one is, then one’s opinion is of no value. People who defend Obama can’t do it without injecting personal vitriolic insults and innuendo because they have “personality of cult” disorder which shuts down their ability to think in a cogent, reasonable, and objective way. I had hopes for Obama and was perfectly open to, and was hopeful for, his success in getting things under control and bringing some harmony into this country. Not any more.

Business owners nationwide are making preparations for the upcoming Obamacare regulatory tsunami. Citing cumbersome regulations and costs, entrepreneurs are being forced to make very difficult decisions. The stories are becoming all too common. In order to keep their businesses afloat, companies are laying off workers, reducing their hours and in some cases, closing locations.

Just over three years ago, Vice-President Joe Biden announced a new $500 million stimulus funded jobs training program. The new initiative would be aimed at training unemployed workers to compete and attain employment in the administration's coveted field of 'green jobs'. At the time of his announcement, Biden stated that the program would create "real live jobs for a real live future".

In a weekly address to the nation back in March, President Obama addressed the crippling effect of gas prices on the economy, citing the creation of 'thousands' of American jobs through his renewable energy plan, and stating simply, "we can't drill our way out of this problem."

Controversial tactics used by far-left environmentalists are nothing new when it comes to advocating for the well-being of trees over the well-being of fellow Americans. But taking a more in-depth look at the latest antics from a Daryl Hannah-backed outfit is no less important an exercise in demonstrating their lack of concern for economic and national security winners such as the Keystone XL pipeline, as it is an endless source of entertainment.

When last month's unemployment rate took a sudden and unexpected plunge to 7.8%, conservatives who thought there was something amiss took a beating in the media. Jack Welch was particularly excoriated for a tweet he sent out suggesting that the numbers were fabricated, and others who had similar doubts were labeled condescendingly as 'unemployment rate truthers'.